A few weekends ago was much like any of our recent weekends: jam packed with races and family time fun! I had a cross-country race about an hour drive from our home at noon, then we all had evening cyclocross races about another hour from home, but in the other direction. If home was "A", my cross-country race was "B", and our cyclocross races were "C".
It didn't make sense to go home after XC so we look advantage of the time and my husband got to squeeze in a throws session at a track en-route to our evening races. It meant we'd be out all day and well into the night, but we're used to that! Pack all the snacks and clothing for every possible weather scenario and we're good to go!
This cross-country race was at one of my favorite locations in the province. Cross-country races in Alberta are few and far between, but the locations are always totally awesome. The course was in a small town on their XC ski trails; it was lots of up, down and some flat. A really tough course that never fails to push you hard and make you dig deep to do well.
I knew the course, I knew the hills; and my plan was to attack and maintain. Attack the hills and maintain a hard consistent pace for the race. While my pace was in the range of what I wanted, I just couldn't attack the hills and lost time because of it. This I know, is due to a "slight" lack of hill and strength training over the past months. (However, this will be a focus of my 2015-2016 off-season training plan.)
While my time at the finish wasn't horrible, I wanted more. I wanted a faster time yes, but I also wanted to feel better feeling worse. Anyone who runs xc knows what I'm talking about. You know you're going to hurt running those miles, but you always hope for a good strong hurt, not a weak ugly one.
With no time to dwell, I had a quick stretch and banana and we were off to our next destination: throws facility. The weather was absolutely beautiful and Javelin Daddy had a great weight throw session! Once throws were done we headed off to our last destination of the day for cyclocross! Finally we all get to race!
Our Littleman races in the adult categories, either "C" or novice men depending on the race. At this event there was also a kids race, which sometimes is not very exciting and why our bean enjoys the adult races much better. However, this weekend the races were in Bike Town Alberta and they know biking! They know the kids want to do barriers, sand, and all the fun stuff they see their parents doing! As our Littleman knew this, he decided he wanted to do the kids race as well - sweet!
The kids had a blast ripping it up on the course through the sand and over the barriers. Our Littleman did awesome, coming second place; but it was what he did after that got me to tears. He stayed until the end, until all the kids were done their laps and cheered them on. He even helped the last little dude over the barriers on his last lap...sportsmanship at it's best. I was in complete tears. Serious Mama moment.
Once I gathered myself together, it was almost time for our race. As this race was a "little" outside the rules for cyclocross (it may have had a jump, some fire, a sketchy downhill gravel section and a smoke tent), categories were more casual with A, B, C or Newbie. Which meant we all got to race together in Cat C (whereas normally I'm with the women and Javelin Daddy and Littleman both race in men). It's so much fun to all be out on the course together!
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| Pre-race: No clue what we were talking about! |
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| Photo credit Nancy St-Hilaire |
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| Burger on the podium? Why not?! Where am I looking? No clue? |
It was provincials on the Sunday and we were back to our regular race categories of the boys going first and me later on in the afternoon.
Cyclocross is a sport where the number of laps you do is based on the leader's time during the first few laps; only after that do you find out how many total laps you'll be doing. Everyone finishes on the leaders' lap, which means if you get lapped, you end up doing less laps than the leaders. Our category race time is usually 40 minutes, which typically means 5-6 laps in a race.
Our Littleman usually gets in 3 laps, which is pretty insane considering he's racing against adults. On Sunday however, he got 4! As he came around on his 2nd lap he shouted to Javelin Daddy on the course "I think I'm going to get 4 laps"!! He busted his butt on that 3rd lap to not get passed, and managed to get in that 4th lap! Me at the finish: more tears.
After a few hours of downtime between races (meaning play time outside!) it was my turn to tear it up. My race was not bad, considering it was my third race of the weekend. One minor wipe-out, where I wasn't paying attention to the upcoming gravel on a tight turn; other than that I managed to keep the rubber side down and put in a solid effort.
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| Photo Credit Courtney Rosborough |
Top it off with a delicious beverage and home cooked meal and all is well! Cheers to the next one!
Super cool races! Was that flaming barrier tall? Trying to figure out if you were bunny hopping or riding it. The sand looks miserable. Kudos to your little guy for riding it and getting in 4 laps! I usually run the sand because I don't like getting it in my drivetrain.
ReplyDeleteThanks Kelli! No, the fire barriers are not tall at all! You can just wheelie over them...they're usually really close together, so bunny hopping usually not advised as it often causes a good crash on the second barrier! I love riding the sand, I won't run unless I have to ... but yes getting it everywhere is not fun. The sand is so inconsistent up here, some races it's totally ridable and some you just sink! LOL. If you're ever up in Alberta, do it in the fall for one of our night races - so much fun! 2016 perhaps ... :)
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